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Talk:Tyrdda Bright-Axe
Wrong references Both this page and the Morrighan'nan page mistakenly list Tyrdda and Morrighan'nan as mother and daughter, and I'd like to clean that up, if there's no objection. When the saga talks about a "child of Tyrdda's blood," I believe that means a distant descendant, not her actual child. Certainly the Morrighan'nan who was involved with the Battle of Red Falls wasn't Tyrdda's daughter - she lived in -355 Ancient, well over a thousand years after Tyrdda founded the Avvar in -1815 Ancient according to WOT. I'd also like to correct the mentions of Aval'var. As I understand the saga, Aval'var is the name of Tyrdda's daughter, not her lover. "Dead her tribe, unless a child could keep her line in warrior fashion. Aval'var, so named the lover, called 'our journey, yours and mine,'" - I read that as meaning the lover gave the child the name Aval'var, not that Aval'var was the lover's name. It doesn't make much sense to suddenly introduce the lover's name at this point in the saga, but it makes a lot of sense to name the new child. And "Lover's whispers to obey, Hendir, dwarf-prince, friend in passion, babe produced to serve the line, the Avvar tribe, her name, our taking." - I read that as meaning they took the babe's name as their tribe name. But I could see how it might be interpreted differently, so I don't necessarily want to list Aval'var as the name of Tyrdda's daughter on this page - but I'd like to remove the Aval'var = Tyrdda's lover interpretation, if no one objects. (talk) 23:04, November 20, 2017 (UTC) :Hello there. Yes it appears there is only one and a half millennia year difference between the two characters. I think you can safely make the changes you see fit. Since you are a regular, might I also suggest creating a forum account in the wiki? :Finally, you might consider leaving a message to the talk page of Henio0, the author of those pages. He might have one or two things to say since he wrote the articles. 23:17, November 20, 2017 (UTC) So a bit more about interpreting the saga - the line about "tribes with blades by farming blunted" is referring to the other Alamarri tribes that the Avvar were breaking off from. That's why it's described as "their parting pains." It's following directly from the previous stanza; it's not a new attack by a new tribe. Saying their blades were blunted by farming is an insult, similar to the line about how they've grown weak from the fat Thelm's been feeding them. So for the wiki to refer to the other Alamarri as "a tribe of farmers" would be confusing at best. Interpreting the line "woke she did to love-sweat morning, lover gone in light of day" as being about the lover's death is also speculation. We know that she left; we don't know if she died. We don't even know whether or not the Lady of the Skies had been possessing a body to begin with. Nothing she does in the saga requires a body. Or maybe she was possessing Tyrdda - it would explain why the saga refers to Tyrdda as a "maiden, spurning all requests" while also saying she has a (spirit) lover. There's way too many different potential interpretations here for the wiki to pick one. In general, this page is supposed to be a summary of Tyrdda's life. I don't think we need it to be a line-by-line translation of the saga, especially when some parts of the saga were probably deliberately left open to interpretation. Carabas (talk) 08:57, February 20, 2018 (UTC) :With no Dragon Age ahead, the wiki is going through a bit of a drought so I doubt there will be anyone else to weigh in how they interpret the poem. I will admit I am confused/not sure about several lines. Such as: *Gifted from her leaf-eared lover, laughing lady of the skies. :not 100% sure if the leaf ear is being an elf, and the "lady of the skies" is not capitalised. *Warriors great and great in number, sun-kissed swords to fight his wars, :no idea what "sun-kissed" swords are. *Drake-scaled shirts their bodies covered, heart-wine stained the salty shores. :They wore dragonscale armour, but I've failed to find the meaning of "heart-wine", and how shores stained in this way relate to the lore. *Aval'var, so named the lover, called "our journey, yours and mine," :This is probably the most debatable line. I see your point why it is strange to mention this name so late in the poem. But it is written in a confusing way. "So named the lover" could mean both the lover's name or the lover literally naming the child; same with the "called", it could mean both that the lover exclaimed, or that the lover named the child as "their journey". If we assume Aval'var was the name of the child, perhaps "Aval'var" means "our journey". *The Avvar tribe, her name, our taking. :Again, the ambiguous "name". Is the "her" referring to the name of the child, giving another meaning to Tyrdda being "Avvar-mother", or is the "her" referring to Tyrdda, and "name" here is "legacy". *Took her freedom, Hendir glad, wished her what he could not give her. :I thought maybe "took her freedom" means that they married, but it does sound like speculation. Not sure what does the "wished her what he could not give her" means; I thought maybe he wished she loved him but she didn't. :And here is some liberties I took with the interpretation: *Tyrdda Bright-Axe, bold and bloodied, took her tribe from placid plains, Tribes with blades by farming blunted chased and fought, their parting pains. :The first line refers to the Avvar as a singular tribe, the second line refers to multiple tribes, unlikely to be talking about the same tribe. The parting pains I think refers to the Alamarri not wanting the Avvar to split from them, so essentially a civil war, one of many to come. * Tyrdda Bright-Axe, Dwarf-Friend Chieftain, with her leaf-eared lover lay, Woke she did to love-sweat morning, lover gone in light of day. Dream-words whispered, spoken soft, still the silence crushed and crashing, :Like you said, this is rather ambiguous. I was basing the death part on the Avvar lore established in the Jaws of Hakkon, how they bind spirits. It would be strange for a spirit to leave, either if it was possessing Tyrdda, or another body. I think what happened was the spirit realised she will never have an heir if the spirit hangs around her all the time, so it left so she could have children. :I have taken the "dream-words" as talking to spirits in the Fade, like in third stanza: "None shall break my tribe apart, Not with demon-words that kill, Fear my fury's fiery rays, Dream-words lie, their thirst unslaking." This means that the offers the spirits give are not trustworthy, so "dream-words" does have to do with the Fade at least, it's not literally about dreams. :I'm not sure if "still the silence crushed and crashing" meant there was no answer or that the silence was "crushed" as in broken, and there was a reply from the spirit. :Just as a side note, the polish version of the poem exists. I don't know if the translators had any insight from BioWare or if they had to translate it blindly, but here are some things it assumes: *"Wise in wisdom, calm in counsel, great in gifts her grateful guests" refers to the tribe, not Tyrdda herself. *"Gifted from her leaf-eared lover, laughing lady of the skies." It refers to the lover as a female, but does not use the same name that the Lady of the Skies uses, it uses another synonym for "sky". And it says that the staff was given to Tyrdda by the lover. *"heart-wine stained the salty shores" here means "the blood from their hearts stained the sea's shore". *"Whispered words to drive the droves to golden city where he dreamed." is translated here as "he convinced people en-mass to travel to the golden city where selected few dream" *"Heed the dreams and cross the Waking." and ""Be my bride and cross the Waking, eat the gilded city's fill."" The "Waking" here they didn't translate as the Waking Sea, but they used the same word they used to translate the Beyond, what the elves use for the Fade. *"Tribes with blades by farming blunted chased and fought, their parting pains." is translated here as OTHER tribes were chasing her, making the split from them harder. *"Beast no blade could break came roaring, mountains slipped their winter gown," This is translated here as the dragon's roar caused an avalanche and the tribe became trapped. *"Woke she did to love-sweat morning, lover gone in light of day. Dream-words whispered, spoken soft, still the silence crushed and crashing" it says here that the lover wasn't there when the sun came up, and the second line is translated as "whisper of words in a dream, quiet news, but not satisfying". *"Aval'var, so named the lover, called "our journey, yours and mine," goes as "Aval'var, the elven female lover, said "journey yours and mine". "Then did Tyrdda look to Hendir, dwarf-prince friend, children-giver, Took her freedom, Hendir glad, wished her what he could not give her. " says here that Tyrdda joined with Hendir, he couldn't give her what she wanted, and that he accepted her freedom, so I guess they translated "took" as "accepted", not "retrieve". Then it says that he was the one to appoint Tyrdda's daughter when "all the blames will get erased" as the chieftain, he gave the tribe all kinds of gifts and made sure they would survive. henioo (da talk page) 16:40, February 20, 2018 (UTC) I'd agree with a lot of your interpretations, the trouble is that a lot of this is still just our interpretations, and I'd like to keep the main page as fact-based as possible. A lot of these details (like heart-wine) are minor enough that they probably don't need to be interpreted on Tyrdda's page. I definitely agree with you that leaf-eared means the Lady was an elf, but it's not clear if she was possessing an elven body or if the spirit herself looked like an elf or both. But I think the description on the wiki right now works either way - "a spirit, the Lady of the Skies, in the form of an elf." And I'm not sure why Lady of the Skies isn't capitalized in the saga either. But it seems unlikely the Avvar would refer to another spirit by the same name as their most important goddess - and this story would explain how she became their most important goddess, if she guided the founding of their tribe. Maybe it's not capitalized because it started out as just another name, and it became more of a formal title over time as she became their main goddess? But that's a wild guess and seems like a stretch. Anyway, I do think it's safe enough for the wiki to refer to her as the same Lady of the Skies, but I wouldn't mind removing that connection. I don't know about the "sun-kissed swords" either. Bronze swords? Red lyrium? Glowing mage staffs like Tyrdda's axe? It's speculation either way. But "heart-wine" is a kenning for blood, so the bloodstained shores means Thelm's warriors have seen battle. Aval'var meaning "our journey" is definitely how I read that line, and it fits with what we know of the elvish language too. "Var" is elvish for "our," and "aval" sounds like it could have come from a word like aravel, aravas, elvish words for paths or journeys. With the civil war part - that's pretty much how I read it too. Tyrdda's tribe is chased by the Alamarri tribes who'd been gathered by Thelm, basically a civil war. There's an entry about that in WOT's timeline: "The Alamarri living near Lake Calenhad break away, becoming the Avvar. The two groups war with each other for centuries." With the Avvar spirits in Jaws of Hakkon, it was portrayed as normal and expected for spirits to eventually leave the mage they're possessing, no death required as long as everyone involved is willing - that was the whole plot with Sigrid Guldsdotten, that she'd kept her spirit with her longer than she was supposed to. So even if the Lady was possessing someone, it shouldn't be a problem for her to leave without anyone dying. And I'd interpret the "dream-words" in the third stanza as being literally about dreams, referring to spirits tempting Thelm with visions of the golden city in his dreams - but even though I don't think it's the case here, you have a good point that it would make sense to refer to everything spirits say as dream-words, even if they're in the physical world. We could remove the "In a dream" description from the article, maybe just have that paragraph start with "Tyrdda's lover instructed her..." and leave it at that. That the Polish version translates the Waking as the Beyond is fascinating! I wish we knew whether that (and all the other differences) was intentional or a localization error. Carabas (talk) 20:45, February 20, 2018 (UTC)